Also named were Ammiel Alcalay, chair of the department of classical, Middle Eastern and Asian languages, and Elisheva Carlebach of the history department.
Carlebach is a former chairwoman of the Jewish studies program. Queens College President Allen Lee Sessoms, who made the appointments, said the troika will lead the 500-student program during the international search for a permanent director.
Finding a qualified candidate to head one of the largest Jewish studies programs in the nation could take several years, a college spokesman said.
In addition to directing the day-to-day activities of the Jewish studies program, which has a interdisciplinary staff of about eight teachers, the trio also will be responsible for the Jewish Center, which sponsors lectures and events for the Queens community.
The Jewish studies program has been without a director since July, when Bird resigned — partly because of criticism that a non-Jew should not lead a Jewish program.
His chief critic, Samuel Heilman, chairman of the sociology department, also declared that Bird, a Catholic, was not qualified because he did not know Hebrew and did not hold a doctorate. He was joined in that criticism by the man Bird was to replace, Professor Joseph Songolewsky.
Heilman threatened to stop teaching in the program, saying that Bird “was not the role model of what a Jewish studies director should be.” Criticism also centered on Sessoms’ apparent failure to consult with faculty about the selection.
Sessoms declined to answer questions about his reappointment of Bird. But in July he called the criticism “a campaign of intolerance” and Bird’s resignation a tragedy. College spokesman Ron Cannava said Sessoms never wanted Bird to resign, and “when the opportunity came to restructure the administration, Bird was the first person he would turn to.”
Some Jewish scholars in the area are questioning Bird’s reappointment, especially after the 58-year-old professor in July accused his opponents of “primitive religious bigotry.”
“The attempt to trash my academic record and standing in the community…[is] a fig leaf for objections to my being a gentile,” Bird said at the time. He has been teaching in the Jewish studies program since the 1970s and has a long record of activism on behalf of Soviet Jewry.
Said one Queens College educator over Bird’s reappointment, “It’s a strange set-up. They must have wanted him back very badly.”